"Lizzie!"
Evan yells for me across the club. Why we had to meet in such a crowded place is beyond me. I was all about meeting in a public place, but this is crazy. I can't hear anything but music and screaming people. He waves me over to a booth in the back. I work my way through a sea of smoke, red lights, and people who wouldn't move if the place was on fire. There is a band onstage that I don't recognize. From the size of the place, I can guarantee we are in the middle of a fire code violation.
Finally, I am able to venture through the madness and essentially land in a booth, rather than sit in it. It's a round one, around a red corner table, so I pull my bag and my legs into it and creep into the back.
"Why in the hell did we meet here?"
"I know the owner."
"You're so full of shit."
"No, I actually do. My cousin owns the place."
He points across the club to the bar where I man who looks strikingly similar to him, only about fifteen years older, stands in a black suit. He waves in our direction.
"Well, I stand corrected. Still, I can't hear a damn thing," I yell at him.
"I know," he yells back, "we're not going to stay here. We're going to go in the back."
He grabs my bag and my hand and pulls me from the booth. We squeeze through the remainder of the crowd and walk through the "Employees Only" door. The room behind the doors is apparently his cousin's office. There are framed images of his cousin with various bands and people hanging on the wall, as well as security feeds, a computer, and more. It is soundproofed and my entire being seems to relax.
"Is that better?"
"Yes. Yes, it is," I reiterate.
Evan is a person I met online roughly a year ago. That was when I found out more about Mom and Dad. Castiel had told me numerous tales about them over the years, but I had found no substantial proof until I met Evan on a supernatural forum. I wasn't even on it for them. I was doing research for a religious studies course and decided to do an essay on supernatural beings. Due to my lack of friends, he and I had talked significantly since then, meeting up as much as possible.
"Do you want something to drink?"
"Coke? Whatever you have is fine."
He opens a small fridge beneath the desk, searching for something.
"It appears we only have Red Bull and beer…I could get you something from the bar."
"No, just give me the Red Bull."
I snatch it from his hand and take a short sip, not too fond of it.
"So what have you been up to?" he asks, sitting in a leather chair across from me.
"Trying to get Mom and Dad to let me out of their sight, sneaking around, seeing dead people. The usual."
"I'm don't envy your life."
"Who would?"
Evan barely fits on the chair he is sitting in. For only being eighteen years old, he's incredibly tall. If he was an athlete, he would excel greatly at basketball, simply based on his six foot six height. I got my mother's height, so I barely come to his shoulders. He was nearly my doppelganger in male form, aside from the stature matter. Our green eyes nearly mirrored one another, with mine being slightly grayer than his. His brown hair was cut short, while mine hung long and curled below my shoulders. I had inherited a pale complexion from someone in the family, as well as muscular build I know I will have to work hard to maintain as I age.
Although I feel that I knew a lot about Evan, there were points when I consider him to be something like a stranger. I know what he tells me online and what I saw the many times I met him when sneaking out. There are things about his past and present I know nothing about, such as his family or where he even lives. We always meet in public, so he may not live anywhere near me. Still, I feel comfortable with him.
He pulls his laptop from his laptop bag and sets it on the desk.
"So what is so important you couldn't tell me online or on the phone?"
"Patience, please," he says, furiously typing through various web pages.
I lean down and reach for Evan's bag. It's a very interesting little thing, full of numerous electronic and illegal treats.
"Do you have any new phones?"
"Yeah," he says, not looking from the monitor, "it's in the front pocket. Throw away the old one."
I reach in my pocket, pull the sim card out of my now former phone, and smash it with my boot. I go through phones like most people go through socks. It wouldn't be the case if my parents allowed me to have one. It was a newer one, with just about every feature one could want on it. I place it in my purse and turn back to Evan's monitor.
"Thanks."
"No problem. You'll probably get another one in a month," he says with a grin.
"These articles are from about twenty years back. I don't know how I missed them."
I'm starring in astonishment at a newspaper article online, archived from decades back. It tells the tale of a group of people from California that was massacred. Their names are omitted for an unknown reason. However, there are images of what happened. I see shots of people covered in white sheets and blood covered walls, but more importantly is the image of my mother and father walking away in the background.
"Are you sure that's them?" he asks me, knowing full well I'm sure.
"Yes. My mom is looking back at the camera. It's a long time ago, but that's her."
As far as the article goes, the media seems to believe that it was a random gang killing. I get the feeling reading it that the explanation was simply something to satisfy the public and keep them from being terrified. Something more seemed to be going on, the more I read about it. Evan was able to find photos of the crime scene minutes later, ones that showed me how people were killed and I realize it couldn't possibly be a gang killing. There are far too many supernatural elements to it.
I am incredibly grateful that I cannot see the faces or other identifying characteristics of the victims, as I am related to many of them. That would have been heartbreaking. It takes a while to find names. For some reason, they are unpublished in most of the newspapers. It may have been due to my parents not being around. They were the only ones that survived. I manage to find Faith Lehane's name, however, as she had a prison record. It makes sense that they were able to track her fingerprints for the story.
"Have you been able to track my parents after that?"
"Not by much. They kind of went off the reservation after that. The next thing I find regarding them is you and you don't even have a birth certificate."
"Why don't I have a birth certificate?"
"I don't know. You should. Your birth certificate that was used for educational purposes was falsified. It has your name, but it has different parents on it."
I know I should be more curious when told such things, but in reality, I'm simply irritated. I don't enjoy being lied to and through issues such as this; my parents are making me lie to others without me even knowing it.
"Why would someone do that?"
"To hide, from what I have seen in the past. I imagine they were hiding and when you were born, it kind of threw a wrench in their plans. No offense."
"Oh yeah, none taken," I say sarcastically, rolling my eyes.
I watch him fly through numerous pages and images for a few minutes before I grow slightly restless and start to wander through the office. It is not very large, so I don't get far before I slump back into the chair again.
"Anything else?"
"Yeah, if I go back further regarding incidents in that area, there are a wide variety of supernatural occurrences. It's not easy to find because not everyone believes in this stuff. Then there is a bunch of people who just make crap up."
"Well, does anything look plausible?"
I'm starting to wish I hadn't left the house. It wasn't worth the small amount of information I was provided.
"Some of it. There are lists of strange happenings around your parents' former home for years prior."
"What kind of happenings?"
"Well, a very large amount of grave desecrations, for example. Far more than anywhere else in the world. Everything is very increased – fights, murders, stuff like that. They all also have elements to them that one may not consider normal. People being bitten, drained blood, those sorts of things."
"By what, vampires?"
Part of me is joking when I say that, but the other part believes it.
"That seems to be the theory," he says, looking through posts on forums that are open on multiple tabs on the monitor.
Suddenly, the door bursts open. Two men I have never seen walk into the office.
"Who are you?" Evan asks them, closing the laptop quickly.
"Who the hell are you? What are you doing back here?"
"I'm James' cousin. He said I could come back here."
"Well, you need to leave now, kid. We have some problems outside."
"But-"
"Now!"
They escort us out the back door and we are soon standing in the alley, unsure of our next move.
"C'mon," I say, "let's go get something to eat."